Airtel has most among 97 crore mobile subscribers, says TRAI

India made a record high in number of subscriber in the country. According to a recent TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) report, the country had about 97 crores or 970 million mobile subscribers in December 2014.

“The number of telephone subscribers in India increased from 964.20 million at the end of November, 2014 to 970.97 million at the end of December, 2014,” the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India said in the report.

As the report suggests, AirTel is leading with the highest number of subscribers in the country, which is followed by Vodafone. AirTel has nearly 21.72 crore customers, whereas Vodafone has topped a mark of 17.84 crore users. Idea Cellular takes the third lead with about 15.05 crore users. Reliance and BSNL hold 10.62 crores and 8.13 crores users respectively, whereas Aircel, Tata Teleservices and Uninor have 7.86 crores, 6.61 crores and 4.36 crores subscribers respectively.

Again, Airtel took the lead in adding the number of customers to its network. Airtel had nearly 17 lakh customers, Vodafone at 15 lakh, Uninor 12 lakh, Aircel about 9 lakh; Tata Teleservices received nearly 6 lakh, and Videocon had 2.7 lakh. In total, the total amount of subscribers in the country was approximately 25 lakhs, out of which a portion also belongs to MTNL.

Reports also suggest that there were nearly 35 lakh consumers who requested the number portability. Total Mobile Number Portability or MNP has now reached a total more than 14 crore users.

The mobile subscribers have been an all-time high in the country, since the last survey that was made in the month of October 2015. TRAI says that at the end of December 2014 out of total 97 crore subscribers only 83.3 crores were found active.

TRAI also notified about the growth in the broadband sector was also dominated by the mobile industry. Hike received in the broadband subscriber base was 4.28 percent with 8.57 crore on a monthly basis at the end of December. Previously, the same account was looking at only 8.2 crores in the month of November last year.